A DEEP-SEATED DICTATORSHIP

When the Eighth Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago convened on October 17, 2002, many in attendance spent their time watching the Laventille East/Morvant PNM member Fitzgerald Hinds. There was nothing out of the ordinary that Thursday morning about the MP’s physical appearance or wardrobe; people were looking at Hinds closely because they had begun to wonder if he was a true Trini. Hinds had to be imported, foreign used at least, because his behaviour was culturally aberrant. He had rejected the post of Junior Minister of National Security, refusing to play second fiddle to the night club owner turned minister, Howard Chin Lee. No real Trini MP said “no” to the perks that came with a ministerial position, no matter where the PM put him, whether it was on top of, below, or in between other people.

At that time, I observed in my column, that if Hinds were indeed made of stern stuff he could become a backbencher, in the true sense of the Westminster word. So could the Tobago East PNM representative, Eudine Job-Davis. She too was without a place in the Manning Cabinet, although in her case, her nationality was not under question: she was a Tobagonian and they were known for being unpredictable. As real backbenchers — not MPs merely sitting in the second tier of the Government’s two rows — I envisaged Hinds and Job-Davis occasionally voting according to conscience, not always toeing the party line. As true backbenchers, the pair could bring legislation to Parliament, question Government policy, serve energetically on parliamentary committees and most of all, speak their mind.  I was excited about the possible emergence of the genuine backbencher in TT’s political life. It would be a significant step forward for a young Caribbean democracy.

I had spent sufficient time in the Red House Chamber to witness ad infinitum what the late Tory Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham (while in Opposition) called “elective dictatorship,” the dominance of the executive over Parliament and particularly the Lower House. I had seen governments and prime ministers run wild in the TT House of Representatives, force bad legislation through, forgetting that Parliament came first, that their power derived only from the majority they commanded in the legislature. I had watched with dismay, administration after administration reject the most viable of recommendations in the Lower House just because these came from the other side, only to accept the very suggestions later from Independent Senators. Trinidad and Tobago’s congress could do with a few backbenchers.

I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe that two backbenchers could eliminate elective dictatorship, but I thought they could have reduced its impact in TT, where a small number of elected representatives and large Cabinets translate into extreme executive and particularly, Prime Ministerial domination of the Lower House. Patrick Manning would have two MPs he could not count on to function as his rubber stamps. When Manning’s Minister of  Labour, Lawrence Achong resigned, it looked like TT would definitely see a Lower House of a new kind: the legislature now had three backbenchers. I was unfortunately very wrong. Manning may say and do silly things, but he is not a complete fool. He saw his elective dictatorship being eroded and moved quickly to strengthen it by making Hinds and Job-Davis ministerial offers they did not refuse. Not that their choice mattered anyway: neither the Trini nor the Tobagonian ever behaved like true backbenchers.

And that was that. My dream of the new TT backbencher was dead and elective dictatorship, the nightmare, was very much alive. The Eighth Parliament would be as those before it: subservient to the executive and to the Prime Minister. Indeed, the Eighth Parliament is beginning to see the most extreme form of “Hailsham’s” dictatorship, manifest in the PM’s mania to transfer his office to the Red House, a mania called Red House Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (RHOCD). Hinds should have introduced his PM to Hailsham or better yet, to his 18th century French writer Baron de Montesquieu, the man he presented to the UNC during the police bill debate. Was it not Montesquieu who warned, “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person...there can be no liberty”? This Government’s dictatorship over Parliament is evident not only in its trying to push through bad legislation or its determination to evict Parliament from its home. It is also seeking to erode the legislature’s power by disabling one of its essential institutions, the select committee, established to reinforce legislative scrutiny of the executive and to tackle complex legislation with more care. Committees of the Eighth Parliament are not meeting as often as they should either because their times conflict with sittings of the House or Senate or because Government members are absent and thus, there is no quorum. Rumour has it that committees are not being given  proper resources.

The Joint Select Committee chosen to examine the three police bills in consultation with the public and with the technical team was dismantled, not by Parliament, which appointed it, but by the Prime Minister. Manning took its unfinished report and passed this to the technical team. Committee reports are normally brought back to the House. No good reason has been given yet to explain this sudden, dictatorial move by the Government, despite Camille Robinson’s Regis’ weak efforts during the police bill debate to defend her administration’s undemocratic conduct. The current system of committees in TT is modelled on that which operates in the UK House of Commons and which was established in 1976, as “a necessary preliminary to the more effective scrutiny of government and an important contribution to openness in government.” Disabling the committee system thus, reinforces the PNM’s elective dictatorship. If you think I am exaggerating the question of elective dictatorship in this country, wait until the 2007 poll when the number of constituencies up for grabs increases to 41. We will then have more MPs seated on the government tiers.

In TT’s backwater version of Westminster, this will translate not into the creation of backbenchers, but to an even larger Cabinet, a government of senior, junior and in-between ministers. That’s why today the unelected Dr Lenny Saith can boldly declare that after 2007, Manning’s takeover of the Red House is a “done deal.” Saith knows that come 2007, if the PNM wins the general election, Manning won’t have to settle for a seat in the Government front row because the PNM’s elective dictatorship will be entrenched and the entire Red House can be Manning’s. Why the PNM is bothering to build a new edifice to house the legislature is anyone’s guess. The dream of a TT Parliament under less executive dominance is as ludicrous as my hope for the surfacing of the true backbencher was in October 2002. And it will remain illusive as long as we continue to elect MPs like Hinds and Job-Davis, “real” Trinis and Tobagonians.